


Exits and Entrances

by nahnahnahnah



Category: Shakespeare RPF | Elizabethan & Jacobean Theater RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21843847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahnahnahnah/pseuds/nahnahnahnah
Summary: Officially, Christopher Marlowe was killed in a bar brawl on 30 May, 1593, 10 days after his arrest for blasphemy.Now Kit must decide who he can trust to make sure the record stays that way.
Relationships: Christopher Marlowe/William Shakespeare
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Exits and Entrances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foxxcub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxxcub/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, foxxcub! I got the impression you wanted Marlowe/Shakespeare and didn't want to gift unrequested poly or open relationships, so this is a Will-and-Anne-never-married AU, as should hopefully be clear in the story.
> 
> Also I made an attempt at Early Modern English but it didn't really work for me, so the language is modernized.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

The night should have been dark and stormy. Had Kit written it, there would have been a soliloquy equating the weather with the character’s circumstances and thereupon his soul. It would have been suitably overblown to be properly ironical, with the wordplay to make it witty rather than an overtrodden cliché.

But he had a long way to travel, and it was for the best that the night was mild and pleasant. A storm would have matched his mood and felt less like God himself was spiting Kit for his insignificance, but being wet and cold could only increase his misery.

Why Will had to come from such a small town so far from London was a question for the ages. But Walsingham had told him he needed to stay with someone he trusted implicitly. And as it happened, the only face that came into Kit’s mind, the only name that came to his lips was William Shakespeare.

Obviously he was never to know. Such information would only further puff up the ego of the jumped-up little shit.

So here Kit was, a day and a half dead according to the official record, making his way as quickly as he dared away from any center of culture and learning and decent ale, in the general direction of Stratford-upon-Avon where dwelled the only man that might ever again be allowed to know that the greatest living English playwright did indeed yet live.

Kit allowed himself a wry smirk at the knowledge that this would allow Will to take up that very mantle. He’d _hate_ that, knowing that his ultimate preeminence was due not to finally overtaking Kit in artistry but in Kit being forced off the lists by outside forces.

There was _some_ small comfort in that.

***

Kit camped in the woods outside Stratford upon Avon the late evening he arrived. Despite Will's invitation, he had never visited, and so could not have picked out the house.

He had to live more carefully now. It would be less cause for comment if he asked directions in the light of day.

So he was in a foul mood when he walked into the town, but keeping in mind his self-given stricture not to attract attention, he made himself as pleasant as possible when he approached strangers to ask directions to the glovemakers guildhall.

He was there not a moment when he came across his quarry.

“Kit!” Will said, thankfully not too loudly, but Kit still scanned the faces around him, looking for any reaction. He violently shoved down the spreading warmth in his chest at Will’s tone of surprised pleasure.

“I must speak to you privately,” Kit replied, and Will’s face sobered at his tone. He led them away to a tidy and well-kept house of two stories.

“My father’s house,” Will said, gesturing him inside. “You may speak freely here.”

Kit took a moment, realizing only as he found relief from it how pervasive his fear and creeping paranoia had been.

“I’m in trouble, Will,” he said. “I need you.” Some small impish part of his mind watched Will’s face closely at the words, but his friend did not seem to react to the innuendo.

“What can I do to help?” Maybe his face was a bit _too_ blank? But no, not the time.

“Some days ago, I was declared dead by an inquest of the Coroner of the Queen’s Household.” _That_ elicited a reaction. Will looked shocked, and reached out to touch Kit’s arm as if to ensure he really stood in front of him.

“Kit, what—”

“I had been arrested, you see, and my…esteemed patron worried that it would show badly on him. So he arranged matters, and now Christopher Marlowe is dead.”

“What do you mean, your esteemed patron—”

“Will, _please_.” That stopped him where he stood. “I cannot tell you. You _must_ trust me. I cannot go back to London; there are too many people who know me there. I cannot be seen to be alive, for if I am I shall not stay that way. Will you help me?”

Will hesitated for a long moment, and Kit’s stomach sank. But then he nodded slowly.

“I can arrange lodgings for you here for a time. But we will have to bring another into this plot.” Kit hesitated, and Will smiled reassuringly. “Fear not. I have known dear Anne nearly all my life; there are none I would trust more.”

Kit nodded, for what else could he do, having placed his life in Will’s hands. He ignored the bitter twist at Will’s warm words and the name he put forth. It seemed he would finally be meeting the famous Mistress Hathaway.

***

Mistress Smith—Mistress Hathaway that was—was not a _very_ pretty woman. She bore the marks of having been one, once, but as things stood she might be better described as handsome. Perhaps comely, at a stretch.

Kit resolutely told himself this as he contemplated his ale at the small public house in Stratford-upon-Avon. It distracted him from how the woman had been all smiles greeting Will, which had mayhaps possibly elevated her to lovely.

It took a long draught of the ale to put Will’s answering smiles out of his mind.

A flirtation once, Will had said, now long past. Barely even worthy of being called a dalliance.

And now a widow not too old with three children Will clearly doted on.

A widow who called Will by his Christian name, and for whom the intimacy was returned.

Kit scowled down into his ale.

He knew himself well enough to realize what was happening, and to realize it was a truly horrendous idea. He and Will were of a like in their natures, both flitting from lover to lover and indiscriminate in their tastes, though Will tended to be a bit more sentimental about it.

A steady relationship, though, the kind that prompted this creeping low jealousy, the kind that allowed for a solid claim on another’s affections and smiles and time—that needed at least one of the participants to be steady in turn, and Kit had never been accused of being steady.

Mistress Smith seemed steady.

He was knocked from his spiraling thoughts by the very man he was contemplating. Will’s hand came down on his shoulder, giving a rough, affectionate shake.

“I bring good tidings, Kit!” he said, pulling him around so they were face to face. “Anne has consented to taking you on as a lodger.”

Kit mustered up a smile in the face of Will’s exuberance. It was necessary, he reminded himself. It was absolutely necessary that none of his own contacts know that he had survived. It was necessary that he stay out of London, where both he and Will had more connections.

He ignored how it had somehow also become necessary to keep Will in his life when by all accounts it would have been easier to leave him behind as well, to steal away to some other country where he was entirely unknown and wouldn’t have to worry about rediscovery.

“Good news indeed,” Kit said at last as the brightness of Will’s grin began to wane. He expected Will to react to the flat sarcasm even he could hear in his own voice, but Will surprised him by wryly smirking just a bit.

“I know. Best we can do for the moment, though.”

As Kit followed Will out of the public house he reflected it was just as well Will had misunderstood. For once he had no desire for a row.

***

The room was small with a low ceiling, sparsely furnished with naught but a bed, a stool, and a small table. There was scarcely room enough for three grown men to stand in the remaining space together.

Which was why Will had left to play with Mistress Smith’s children, leaving him with his prospective landlady.

“Is the room to your liking, Master Marlowe?”

“Indeed it is, insomuch as its location is ideal, being out of the way from where I would be expected to be found.”

“As you say,” said Mistress Smith, inclining her head. She did not react to his tone, which was harsher than called for, but he’d be a fool to seek a quarrel with his landlady so it was mayhaps for the best.

“Has he told you of my circumstances?” Kit asked baldly. It would be best to head off any tendency to gossip about him as soon as he might; the wrong word in the wrong ear could all too easily get back to the wrong people even here. He was not so much a fool to think that his partiality for Will’s company had gone completely unheeded.

“Enough, I should think, Master Marlowe,” the lady replied. “I have kept Will’s confidence as he has kept mine; I shall not speak out of turn.”

“Such faith,” he said, with a hint of bitter mocking. But no, he was _not_ seeking a quarrel. “It must be strong indeed to transfer to an acquaintance he brings begging to your doorstep.”

“An acquaintance, no,” she replied evenly, not rising to the bait he laid out in spite of himself. “But he has mentioned you oft enough in his letters I would scarcely dare call you thus.”

“He wrote of me?” Kit said, caught off his guard.

Mistress Smith’s unflinching façade finally cracked enough for a slight smile. “ _Constantly_ ,” she said, arching a knowing brow as he felt his cheeks heat. This was ridiculous. “More than any other, in my judgement. The only one to approach you would be Master Burbage, and that only to complain. When speaking of you, he only sometimes complained, and less so as time went on.”

Kit felt vaguely lightheaded. “And this you call keeping his confidence?” he asked, but weakly.

“Of the two of us, Will has ever had the wit and I have ever had the sense,” she said, which was so clearly selling herself short he nearly laughed. “He can be blinded by his own poetry and neglect what is staring him clear in the face. As he has been my only example til now, I have not formed too good an opinion of the good sense of poets.”

“Understandable, madam.” They were quiet for a moment, and the shouts of the children filtered in. The subtle teasing on Mistress Smith’s face smoothed out.

“Only tell me you will not bring ruin on my family, and you may stay as long as you like.”

Kit gave half a smile. “The only one in danger is myself if word comes to the wrong ears that I yet live.”

Mistress Smith nodded again. “Then we shall make sure it never does.”

***

Kit wandered out soon enough to find Will seated in front of the cottage, watching the children play. The oldest girl appeared to be bossing the others about, as was right and proper.

“Isn’t Anne lovely?” Will said in greeting, which Kit received much more sanguinely than he would have earlier.

“A formidable woman,” Kit said in agreement, “and most…informative.”

Will froze. It was subtle, but telling. “Oh?” he said, with forced nonchalance.

“Indeed so,” Kit said. “Though she has no good opinion of the sense of poets.”

“Does she not?” Will asked, looking vexed now.

“No, not that I can cast blame,” Kit said. “I find I may also be guilty of her charge.”

“And this charge?”

“That of neglecting what is staring him straight in the face.”

“Indeed?” Will said, staring him straight in the face. A bit too on the nose, but as it looked as though Kit might be getting his heart’s desire he was willing to overlook it.

Will seemed to find what he was looking for in Kit’s face; his hand crept over to cover Kit’s on the bench, and Kit could feel his mouth curl up at the corners, though it seemed totally out of his control.

A brave new world indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I was going to draw out the search for Will in Stratford-upon-Avon, but frankly if a contrived coincidence meeting is good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for me.
> 
> The title is of course a reference to As You Like It Act II Scene VII:
> 
> All the world’s a stage,  
> And all the men and women merely players;  
> They have their exits and their entrances;  
> And one man in his time plays many parts


End file.
